


Justice and Mercy

by sunkelles



Series: Sansa/All the Ladies [9]
Category: A Song of Ice and Fire & Related Fandoms
Genre: F/F, Female Friendship, Sexy Times, Sibling Incest, Sister/Sister Incest, executions
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-05-11
Updated: 2015-05-11
Packaged: 2018-03-30 03:34:14
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,321
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3921403
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sunkelles/pseuds/sunkelles
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sansa is the lady of Winterfell, and she deals with alliances and placating lords. Arya, however, dispenses justice.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Justice and Mercy

**Author's Note:**

> Okay a few notes here 
> 
> Sansa and Arya have an incestuous relationship here. I know that sometimes people in this fandom use the character a/character b tags to mean platonic but that's not the case there. I wanted you all to know that for certain in case incest wasn't your thing. 
> 
> Also, this is as much a character study as it is anything else. 
> 
> If you want to know which character dies before reading it, go ahead and skip to the last note. 
> 
> Enjoy your incestuous character study with a side order of death.

Sansa curls up further into her furs and into Arya’s furs that morning. The morning light is starting to peek through the drapes, but Sansa is not ready to start her day. She wishes to spend a little longer under the furs with Arya before she must go about her duties as Lady of Winterfell.

 

All hope of sleeping in is crushed when one of their chambermaids bursts through the door. She’s panting, as if she’s just ran a large distance, and it takes her a moment to catch her breath.

 

_It is not strange for sisters to share a bed,_ Sansa reminds herself, after her initial panic of having her maid burst in on her and her sister half naked.

 

“Theon Greyjoy and the pretender have been apprehended,” she tells them. Sansa has not been overly concerned about the whereabouts of Theon and/or the girl that the Boltons tried to pass off as her sister. But Sansa can tell that Arya is; her sister wants to see everyone who’s wronged their family brought to justice far more than Sansa does. If Arya could find out the names of all the Freys that participated in the Red Wedding, Sansa doesn’t doubt that she’d take off their heads herself.

 

“Jeyna?” Arya asks, “did you say what I thought that you said?” In some ways, Arya always has been and always will be a better person that Sansa is. Arya still knows the name of every one of their servants, and is especially kind to each and every one of them. Sansa spends so much of her time and energy on juggling between her lords and ladies that she no time or patience for anything like that.

 

Arya’s grip on her hand tightens.

 

Yes, my lady,” she says, “one of your lords has brought Theon Greyjoy and the pretender into custody.” Sansa squeezes her hand.

“Thank you, Jeyna,” Arya says gravely. The maid takes the words as her cue to leave, and she promptly exits their chambers. Sansa holds onto her hand a little bit longer, before she moves to get dressed. Arya does not say a word, and Sansa appreciates her so much for this. Her sister understands when Sansa needs to speak and when things will pass more comfortably in silence.

 

She wonders why they didn’t get on better as children. Perhaps they have the relationship that they do now _because_ they didn’t get on as children. Sansa and Arya got to know each other as women grown, telling each other their secrets while Sansa spilled oceans of apologies at Arya’s feet. Perhaps that’s why they became lovers as well as sisters, because they could never do the second properly on its own.

* * *

 

 

She makes her way to the dungeons later. Arya even postpones her trip to the practice yard, where she normally bests some poor squire at a swordfight that he probably didn’t want to participate in. They find the gaelor quickly enough.

 

 

“I wish to see the girl first,” Sansa says. She needs to know who impersonated her sister in order to make any decision about what to do with her. Sansa does not ask to see Theon, however, because she is not certain that she is emotionally prepared for that. She doubts if she ever will be.

 

The girl that the Boltons passed off as her sister is clad in nothing but a tattered grey dress. Her brown-black hair is matted on her head, and her nose has started to turn black from frostbite. The girl has obviously been through hell.

 

“Sansa?” she says, and Sansa _recognizes_ that voice. She hasn’t heard that voice since King’s Landing, since before the Lannisters killed her father. She looks closer at the girl, and recognizes the curve of her face and her soft brown eyes.

 

“Jeyne,” Sansa says, excitement encompassing her entire being. Arya stands back, seemingly angry and jealous.

 

Jeyne lunges forward, and engulfs Sansa in a hug.

 

“I’m so sorry,” she says, “they made me- they made me-“

  
“It’s alright, Jeyne,” Sansa says, a giddy sort of laughter at her lips, “I’m just glad that you’re alive.” She keeps embracing her.

  
“You aren’t angry? Jeyne asks, “I-I pretended to be Arya.”

 

“You survived,” Sansa says, “I can’t blame you for that.” Sansa has done many things and will do many more that she’s not proud of to survive. Other than Arya, Jeyne is the only friend that she has left. And Arya is quite a bit more than a friend.

 

“What of the turncloak?” one of her guards asks.

  
“We will discuss that later,” Sansa says.

 

“Are you going to see him?” Jeyne asks.

 

Sansa was not planning on it.

 

“Please,” Jeyne nearly begs, “Just look at him. He’s worse off than I am.” Sansa knows that her eyes widen at this. She can’t imagine anyone being much worse off than Jeyne.

 

“You might reconsider,” Jeyne says softly. The idea sends a chill through Sansa, but she tries to push the thought away. She thinks that there is very little that will make her reconsider executing the man who murdered her baby brothers in cold blood.

* * *

 

 

Her sister leaves her as they exit the dungeons, and she does not see Arya again until that night after dinner. Sometimes her sister disappears into the Wolfswood. Sansa knows that the other girl likes to run through the trees in the skins of dogs. Sansa would never try to confine her wild, skin-changing sister to the castle. Sometimes, castles are far more dangerous than what lurks outside of them. They both learned that the hard way.

* * *

 

 

Sansa has barely changed into her night clothes when Arya bursts into their chambers. Sansa stays sitting on the bed, and Arya sits down beside her.

“What do you plan to do with her?” Arya asks curtly.

“Jeyne is to remain at Winterfell,” Sansa says, “she lived here her almost all of her life, and learned much of her father’s trade. Winterfell could use a new steward.” The other girl stiffens at this, but she says nothing. Arya used to voice every emotion and thought that passed through her head, but her travels taught her caution. She rarely talks about any of her emotions anymore, but sometimes Sansa can read her. If she’s not incorrect, she thinks that her sister is jealous. Sansa feigns an exasperated sigh.

 

“Jeyne is my friend,” Sansa says, “but _you”_ and she accents this with a soft kiss to her sister’s lips, “are my _everything.”_ Sansa is not sure whether or not this calms the storm of emotions within her sister, but it certainly ignites her lust. The other girl kisses back, fiercely, and Sansa finds herself lost in the taste and feeling of home.

 

Home feels a lot like an orgasm.

* * *

 

 

The next day, Sansa bites back her anxiety and goes to see Theon. First, she goes to see Jeyne. Sansa could never think badly of Jeyne.The other girl was once her greatest friend.She’s gone through a literal hell, perhaps worse than either Sansa’s or Arya’s, and Sansa will give her the ending that she deserves.

 

Theon, however, is a harder case to deal with.

 

“Please don’t kill him,” Jeyne begs. Sansa looks at the other girl apologetically.

  
“I can promise you your life,” Sansa says, “but I cannot promise you his.” Jeyne sobs a bit, and Sansa’s heart wrenches a bit. Sansa has not even seen him yet, and she doubts that he could be any worse off than Jeyne.

* * *

 

 

When Sansa sees him, she’s not sure that she’s ever been quite so wrong. At first she thinks that her guards must have led her to the wrong cell. The man with the bedraggled white beard could not possibly be Theon Greyjoy. Theon couldn’t be any older than four and twenty. This man couldn’t be any younger than five and fifty.

 

But his eyes are the same twinkling blue-grey and his open mouth reveals a cemetery of broken teeth. A shiver crawls up her spine.

 

“Sansa,” he says, in a voice barely there, “is that really you?” He tries to reach towards her, but she realizes that he’s missing at least half of his fingers on each hand. His hands look like the flowers that she and Jeyne used to pull the petals off of for fun. It looks like Ramsay Bolton made a game of mangling him. Sansa feels as though she’s going to vomit.

 

She doesn’t say anything, isn’t even sure that she still has a voice. He seems to take this for assent.

“Bran and Rickon,” he tells her, “they’re alive- I didn’t kill them.”

Suddenly, Sansa remembers why the man is in prison, why she should hate him. Sansa cares for Jeyne, and she can see that Theon has suffered atrocities. He also committed atrocities, and Sansa isn’t sure if those things should cancel each other out.

 

Theon’s missing fingers did not resurrect Bran and Rickon

 

“You have to believe me,” he says, as he tries to jolt forwards. He’s caught midway by his chains. She staggers back, a guilty sort of anger bubbling in her chest. She can’t speak. She feels as if there’s a large snake wrapping around her throat, and she flees the cell in a highly ignoble fashion.

* * *

 

 Arya returns to the castle in time to dine with Sansa today. She eats some of her meal in silence before she brings up the topic that she's been avoiding. 

 

“I went to see Theon Greyjoy today,” Sansa says, her voice sounding strained, even to her own ears.

“I want his head,” Arya tells her. This is not the way that Sansa wanted to start their dinner conversation, but she supposes that it was bound to come up eventually. The man who murdered their brothers is the dungeon, or at least what remains of him is. He lost most of his fingers and his sanity during his time with Ramsay Bolton. Sansa might have realized that he’d lost more, had she stayed around longer. She isn’t sure that her stomach or her own sanity would have been able to take it.

 

Sansa wants vengeance. By the gods, does she want vengeance, but she isn’t sure that taking it out on Theon Greyjoy would mean anything at this point.

 

“Arya,” she says, “I don’t know if we should. He’s- he’s already been through so much.” Sansa tries to decide where to take her comments, and Arya, surprisingly does not butt in with her opinion.

 

“I think that we could be merciful,” she concludes. There’s a power in mercy as well as a power in justice. She’s not even sure that taking off his head would be justice at this point. Arya looks to her for a moment, and her grey eyes darken.

 

“I learned that sometimes death is a form of mercy,” Arya tells her. Sansa only knows what Arya has told her of what happened between her escape from King’s Landing and her arrival at Winterfell. It was a brief overview leaving too many pieces of information blurry or completely out. The tale that Sansa knows gives no hint of when this occurred. She does not feel as though she should ask where her sister learned that lesson.

 

Sansa is the lady of Winterfell, and she deals with alliances and placating lords. Arya, however, dispenses justice. Sansa has no interest in playing the Father over the lives of mortals, and she feels that even if her sister’s sense of justice is a bit harsh, it is effective.

 

“Alright,” Sansa says, “do as you will.” Her mouth feels dry as the deserts of Dorne, but she ignores it. Arya wants his head, and Sansa isn’t certain that she shouldn’t give it to her. She grasps her sister’s hand under the table as they continue the rest of their meal in silence.

* * *

 

 

Sansa draws her cloak tighter around her. The autumn air has started to become biting cold in the Wolfswood. They wouldn't do a beheading in the Godswood. The place is far too sacred to be sullied with blood. 

Arya draws the ax she asked the blacksmith to forge specifically for beheadings. In the past, a Stark would behead the condemned with Ice, but Ice is as lost to them their brothers and their parents.

 

Sansa has told Arya many times that she does not have to execute prisoners herself. Sansa knows that if she were in her sister’s position, she would not even be able to swing the sword. But Arya holds to the old Northern way, and the one that passes the sentence should swing the sword. Arya passes the sentences in their household, so Sansa supposes that it is only right that she swing the sword. The Starks have never employed headsmen. She supposes they shouldn’t start now.

 

The dim light of late autumn seeps through the trees and glitters softly on the snow. She and trees will bear witness to her sister’s justice. She wonders if the Old Gods would approve.

Theon does not beg for his life, or grovel or curse her. He puts his head down and closes his eyes. Sansa wonders if perhaps meeting death gently is a sort of bravery.

 

Sansa watches as her little sister executes the man that was once their father’s ward and their brother’s closest friend. She does not think it just and _right_ the way that Arya does, but she does not oppose it. He murdered Bran and Rickon in cold blood.

 

She draws up the ax. Her sister never bothers with as much ceremony as the men say her father afforded the men he executed. She does not list her slew of titles or

 

Sansa does not flinch as the ax chops through his neck like a warm knife through butter. Arya's ax is dripping with blood, but her sister looks satisfied. 

 

Sansa feels nothing at all. 

**Author's Note:**

> Sorry Theon. You didn't deserve that. 
> 
> I wrote it anyway, but you didn't deserve it.


End file.
